DAN THOMASSON: Obama running out of time for a magical economic recovery

The latest job figures make it increasingly easy to see a change in the White House in November based on an economy that can't seem to pull itself out of the doldrums and a president who insists he's not to blame. With a few more months of substandard job creation, how likely is it that President Barack Obama will be the only incumbent since FDR to survive an unemployment rate higher than 7.2 percent?

The Labor Department's announcement Friday of just 80,000 new jobs in June didn't budge the overall jobless rate off the current 8.2 percent mark, meaning unemployment has been stuck above 8 percent for 41 months.

Some 13 million Americans are out of work, and a whole bunch of them have given up looking. Time's a-wasting for any kind of a serious turnaround that might save this administration. If history is any judge, it doesn't matter much whether Mitt Romney can do any better. A whole lot of voters will be willing to roll the dice in Romney's favor.

Now we are told that the Federal Reserve is laying plans for more economic stimulation, under the assumption that it may be necessary to keep away the wolves of a second recession.

What exactly the Fed would do is not clear. But some economists don't think the Fed has enough arrows left in its quiver to matter much.

There are some positive signs. The housing market limped up slightly and some sectors showed minor gains in employment. Health care and manufacturing had 13,000 and 11,000 new jobs. But it was a bad day for the president, made worse by a realization that too much time has been spent worrying about the health care reform law and its big price tag.

The first George Bush had an 89 percent approval rating after Desert Storm, but it declined sharply later that year to 36 percent when Democratic challenger Bill Clinton's campaign tried to show the president lacked concern over hard times.

In the current campaign, Romney wasted no time in charging that the president's policies had led to the continued anemic outlook.

You have to wonder what the president can do at this stage to overcome the situation.

Obama's tour through the hard-hit Rust Belt states has been predictable. He has taken credit for policies that he claims saved the auto industry and he has talked about such elusive goals as tapping into the American character. It is difficult, however, to imagine how this will sell among people who have lost their jobs.